Category: Blog

Mostly about the blog!

A Big Milestone….

Eight and a half years ago, way back on October 28th 2012 I wrote my first post on my little ol’ blog. I had nothing planned other than to share with a few friends what I was getting up to and how I was getting along with my Mustang restoration. Ultimately I could look back in a few years time and take a trip down memory lane with the photos I had taken a certain points of the restoration.

Delivery of my project car 17th September 2011, before it went to Mustang Maniac where I had professional help & guidance on my restoration over the years. Those guys have become some of my best mates of mine as a result.

Looking a little sad
Looking a little sad

When I attend car shows or via my blog and emails etc. I often get asked how I clean and detail my cars;

Some of the Car Shows and photo opportunities;

I get asked how I fitted things, how I upgraded this or that, I even get asked for advice on their own restoration projects.

That got me to thinking about adding extra sections like the tools (a selection of them here), that I used on project and since use, considering that I’m just a weekend warrior with a spanner.

Products that I used to keep our daily cars clean and the Mustang fully detailed.

My merchandise I bought over the years or have been given since I started my journey with the Mustang.

I even get requests to review items, all of which I buy if I think I could use them myself. As a result of all these things, my blog has evolved into an entity of it’s own.

Fast forward a number of years to 2021 where I my little ol’ blog has reached a massive milestone. This is not intended as some bragging rights by the way, but more like myself being proud of the result. Somebody within the USA this morning 15th May 2021 made my day:

My blog has just passed 1,000,000 hits!

I am absolutely amazed to think this could ever happen, I remember getting excited about getting ten hits in one day!

I value every single one of you that has followed me or just pops in for a quick read, like or even the odd comment. I would like to say a massive “Thank You” from the very bottom of my heart.

I don’t actually get anything from my blog/website on WordPress, other than some add money that goes straight to the hosting and my domain fees. It’s sort of self sufficient in a way. If anything I’m out of pocket, but reading the comments and seeing the views more than make up for it. Hopefully I can help somebody, somewhere with something.

My first follower was Debbie Nuessle (click here for her latest venture), from across the pond. We both started blogs within a few days of each other, both revolving around our love of American Muscle cars, especially Ford Mustangs of course. We keep in touch outside of the Blog circle and have become good friends.

I have a number of followers who ‘like’ the posts I put up after even after all these years, thank you all, it means a lot to me. I have such a range of followers; a very talented and well-known Soprano opera singer; Charlotte Hoather (click here for her blog), mechanics, engineers, oil rig mover, artists, photographers, builders, wildlife photographers, fellow classic car owners, writers, product manufacturers, shops, brands, a few younger bloggers, students, world travellers, petrol heads, gear heads, car clubs, writers, novelists, journalists, teachers, photojournalists, professional bloggers, social influencers, religious followers, the list just goes on. (There is even ‘ahem’ some adult orientated content following me!) The full list makes for some amazing reading.

Just in case anybody is interested in some of the more selective stats;

I have a total of 2,700 followers, of which 871 are on WordPress, 2,300 on social media, just over 2000 on Facebook, which is not my favourite of all the platforms I must admit.

I have been visited by 199 countries and the top ten countries in order are; USA, UK, Canada, Australia, Germany, China, France, Netherlands, Finland and New Zealand.

There are stunning islands that have visited me, Mauritius, Seychelles & Maldives. Some of those Islands are so small they wouldn’t be able to fit a Mustang on them! My bucket list is to spend a few days on these islands to chill and take in some sun.

The more obscure countries with a single visit are: Burkina Faso, Falkland Islands, Kosovo, Tonga, Northern Mariana Islands.

To date I have posted 340 blogs including this one over the eight and half years I have been posting on this blog.

These figures are quite low compared to some of you mega stars out, there with you super popular blogs I know that. But for me, like I said earlier, I’m honestly humbled and grateful to every single one of you who wants to look at a blog all about one man and his Mustang!

A huge “Thank You” to you all.

Here’s to the next one million!

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The Results Are In

At the end of my last post “Sweet & Sour part 2”, I asked for the my readers / followers view and response to my dilemma of the cheating allegations that I aimed squarely at Ted Brooke the owner of the 1961 Morris Minor. I won’t go back into what I saw over the weekend I have documented and evidenced that. I created a Poll and asked should I leave my cheating report up, or take it down?

Thank you to those that voted along with your support. The results were a conclusive and massive over 95% in favour to leave it up.

So my evidence of what I saw stays posted.

I have been asked how these posts even got to the point it has now. The answer is quite simple; people started to press my buttons, pressing my buttons does make things happen in my head, I just have to deal with it and can’t let it go. The most basic explanation is when I confronted those involved with the evidence I had, it was laughed off and laughed in my face, it was ignored completely, I was told to go away, I was called a “liar” and a “sore loser”, I was even threatened with legal action, and that little lot just started to rub my nose in it. A little gaggle of cheaters sitting behind the car laughing and celebrating that they had ‘Won’ the ‘well deserved’ trophy didn’t sit to well with me or the others that were there in either. So, not only did I/We witness bad things, but it was then blatant they had no qualms about cheating.

To the point of this post; behind the scenes I had told people I emailed Lancaster my concerns and if I got a response I would too also allow them their fair say. Lancaster did respond and so did Clarion. I will show what I wrote to Lancaster and the responses in a second.

But first; I would like to make it clear that I have no grudge(s) with organisers / partners of the event at all, in fact a little more respect as they had the balls to reply to me knowing full well I would be commenting on their replies, I know they will be reading this. So Thank You to those that have contacted me and replied to me. I will keep their personal contact details out of it as I see no benefit to splash that level of detail all over the internet. All I am doing here is fighting for a pure point of PRINCIPLE, I’m not here trying to ruin events or their jobs.

I wrote an email to Richard Morley, Operations Director, Lancaster Insurance. The email was sent Thu 14/11/2019 13:45  the cut and paste reads as follows; (including a couple of typos, I had at the time and still have tonsillitis, that’s my excuse for the unforgivable errors! 🙁

“Afternoon Mr Morley,

I would like to start of with big thank you for such an enjoyable weekend 8-10 November at the NEC Birmingham. I was one of the lucky 20 entrants able to display on the Pride of Ownership a real honour. However I would like to ask the official stance on cheating within the competition you are sponsoring. Throughout each of the three days at the event the owner of the winning car the pink Morris Minor, was seen cheating by myself and others. He filled in his own voting slips and putting them into the vote boxes, passing pre filled forms to visitors asking them to post the forms as well. He even told the visitors where to tick for his car, he also took wads of the voting forms to club stands to be filled in on a few occasions. As he was next to my car it was clear to see. The joining instructions clearly stated that any cheating would mean disqualification and be asked to leave. Especially as the joining instructions specifically said there was complaints and cheating the year before as well. Vigilance should have been a priority.

The cheating was reported to the NEC organiser who confirmed in a text to me that that the cheating votes were not going to be  counted, obviously many were going to be missed.

With such a blatant knowledge of his cheating the organisrrs and your staff still allowed the entrant to continue. I and others also reported the underhanded tactics to Lancaster staff in white t-shirts who didn’t seem to take it too seriously. Yet still he was not disqualified. I took a photo early Sunday morning where he was sitting at a table with voting forms going through his phone looking for contacts to complete the forms. I witnessed it.

As I’m a good sport I did not make a scene at the awards and spoke immediately to the guy representing Lancaster giving the awards and showed him the evidence. His response was an astonishing “I just write the cheques”. I showed the evidence to the Morris Minor owners club who just denied it and laughed. You representative was seen to go over to apologise the club for any misunderstanding. Again no offering to look into the evidence. I know thwt the Morris Owners club had stacks of forms on their stands, which shouldn’t of been there in the first place. I have the photograph and also the screen shots between me and NEC where the organisers KNEW of cheating and even acknowledged the cheating via text messages, yet still allowed the car to go on and win. By saying we removed the blatant cheating forms has condoned the practice to not remove the car. If you are caught cheating in an exam the exam is void, not just the question you cheated on, if you cut corners on a running track you are disqualified, not just ignore that little bit. I could have been handled without fuss by not placing the car at all, if you didn’t want the bad publicity. An even playing field was all that we requested now I feel that I need to expose this wrong doing. I am happy to have my message logs to be examined by the phone company to prove the messages were indeed sent and received as they were just text messages not WhatsApp encrypted. 

Please could you let me know if you want to see the evidence where I will be happy to send over. Also what if anything does your company intend on doing about the obviously squewed results. I don’t want publicity, i dont want free insurance, I just want the moral and integrity high grounds to be fought for. The guy wanted the trophy so bad be managed to pull it of in the biggest classic car show in the country and you (organisers) were told about it. 

I’m sorry that this has had to be noted to you in such a way.

Based on the experience of your company to date I feel that I can never be insured with you as I don’t know that I can trust the company as a whole. I am in no way suggesting you on any others at your level knew about it. But, it was raised over the whole weekend to many people. In fact there were others entrants also cheating, unfortunately I don’t have 100% proof of that. 

Sour grapes from me? Not at all I had a great time there. It just seems that my principles are greater than others. Many people are the opinion “let it go” but that’s not the point. I have no doubt what so ever than I will now be black listed for events as a trouble maker.

I look forward to your responses.

I’m very dissapointed and feel let down.

Regards,

Mart Dawson.“

Mr Morley’s job title is now different to the documents that I had researched at the time, so perhaps this wasn’t the idea person to speak to, but to be fair – Mr Morley took ownership of it and moved it along for a resolution. A good positive there.

‘Poppyseed’ Clarion’s PR Agency tried to contact me:

Wednesday 15th November 2019 at 15:38. I was unable to answer as I was unable to speak as I had completely lost my voice. A pleasant email was left on my voice mail to call back.

Monday 18th November 2019 at 11:14. I was actually asleep at this point (recovering from a fate worse than man flu obviously) although my voice was starting to come back to the dulcet tones of Barry White. A pleasant voice message was again left for me.

I tried to call PoppySeed on Tuesday 19th November 2019 12:53, unfortunately they were in a meeting all day. A text message very shortly after my call to me to say that emails were going to be on their way back to me later that afternoon. I was slightly surprised that written correspondence was going to arrive, but this is again a positive.

The first email response the next day was from Lee Masters of Clarion the ‘Show Director’ on Wed 20/11/2019 10:59

“Dear Mart

Andrea Seed from our PR Agency (Poppyseed Media) and Richard Morley from Lancaster Insurance have brought my attention to both a letter that you have written to Mr Morley and also a social media blog that you have written entitled ‘One Man and His Mustang’.

Firstly, can I thank you for your encouraging and positive words and photos that you took at the show. It’s good to hear that you enjoy the event as much as we do. I would also like to thank you for entering your superb Mustang into the Lancaster Insurance Pride of Ownership Competition.

It is with regards to the competition that I am writing, and I want to reassure you that your concerns about cheating are being taken seriously. The Pride of Ownership Competition has been running now for four years at both our March and November shows. The competition is about bringing together some of the UK’s best privately owned classic cars and asking the public to vote for their favourite (top three) cars. This is all done in a good-natured spirit of fun, enthusiasm and passion for the classic cars that we all love and cherish.

For clarity, the competition is organised and run by Clarion Events Ltd as the owners of the Lancaster Insurance Classic Motor Show. Lancaster Insurance is the sponsor of the competition.  The organising, administering of the terms and conditions, voting process, vote counting and conclusion of the final results are done by Clarion, independently and without prejudice.

Should any of the competition terms and conditions be possibly contravened then the situation would be raised with me as the Show Director and reviewed by the competition organising team. I confirm that all of the voting forms for all competing cars were diligently inspected and a number of ‘non-qualifying’ votes were removed (not just from the Morris Minor) and were discounted from the final results. I also confirm that this did not affect the outcome of the top three places.

Whilst we do state disqualification in the terms and conditions, in most circumstances, once we have removed ‘non-qualifying’ votes there is not a need to take such action – it really is a last resort as we want this to be a gracious and good-natured public vote.

Finally, I don’t want you to be unhappy and we will as a result of your feedback conduct a review of our processes and Terms and Conditions for our next event. Please also be assured that you will not be black-listed as you put it. I see you as a friend of the show and your comments will help us in the future. As a gesture of goodwill, I would happily offer you guest tickets to our spring NEC show or Reis Race Retro if you would like to join us.

My very best regards

Lee Masters

Show Director”

Second email response was from Mr Morley Wed 20/11/2019 11:31 some thirty minutes later with the following: (Personal contact details redacted).

“Hello Mr Dawson  

Thank you for your email.

Apologies for the delay in my response, following your communication we have shared your email with Clarion Events and have been having discussions with the team there.

Pride of Ownership is an integral part of the weekend and we’re delighted that you were able to join us at the show. I understand you spoke to Andrea Seed on the Sunday of the show regarding your concerns and she has been trying to get hold of you following your email to myself. I’m sorry to hear you have been suffering with tonsillitis, I hope you feel better soon.

Lee Masters, the Show Director, has emailed you this morning and we hope that this has reassured you and addressed your concerns.

Please be assured that all feedback is greatly appreciated, and we certainly take on board all comments. We also hope to see you at future events.

Kind Regards

Rich Morley

Broking Director”

OK, really nice to get the emails which I won’t forensically deconstruct the emails which would be fairly easy to be honest, I will just point out a few little things for you. It’s also quite clear that they spoken with each other and the organisers and the sponsors are not going to throw each other under a bus for bad publicity that’s for sure. The show works well as a whole and I hope it continues to do so. It’s a great show at the end of the day.

We are not stupid either that the voting forms are also a way of the sponsors being Lancaster Insurance are gaining contact details for leads for classic car insurance with renewal dates. A little side note: Classic Car Insurance is a good risk for a number of reasons; people who own these cars trailer or drive them very carefully. Restricted number of drivers also tend to be in the more mature age banding. These cars are simply not thrashed around. They are very well looked after, more so than modern cars. Restricted annual mileage means less exposure to road risks. They are usually kept very secure. Although the downside is the value of the cars for a total loss which can be high, the overall claims ratios still make this a profitable book of business.

Lancaster’s response email from Mr Morley; is worth noting that their email didn’t address a number of my specific points directly about the insurance company itself. This is partially seen to be addressed by Clarion’s response(s). Hence Lancaster have played their keep it clean card to keep out of any potential ‘misunderstandings’ from the show. Lancaster doesn’t address the behaviour of their representative towards me either.

Clarion’s response email; This was always going to be a text book response for an email. They had the right to do what they wanted regarding the Terms & Conditions when you break down the structure. The ‘non-qualifying’ references instead of the ‘cheating’ which softens the public perception of the terminology is now being used. The fact that even with the ‘non-qualifying’ votes removed the results will still stand. In other words; we don’t need to recall the trophies, we don’t need to announce any ‘errors’ Ted Brooke and others are not seen as a cheater and all is good with the world. In fact the email states “a number of ‘non-qualifying’ votes were removed (not just from the Morris Minor) and were discounted from the final results“. So it seems rife that cheating takes place and acknowledged.

However – There is no way that you can guarantee that you removed all the cheating votes, hence the call for disqualification we wanted, or just not place the car at all would have been the easiest answer on the day. The Clarion email says this little paragraph;

“Whilst we do state disqualification in the terms and conditions, in most circumstances, once we have removed ‘non-qualifying’ votes there is not a need to take such action – it really is a last resort as we want this to be a gracious and good-natured public vote.”

So it’s OK for the cheaters that they weren’t going to be thrown out, and the other entrants may as well not turned up by the sounds of it.

The upside is that Clarion offered me a good will gesture, this was always going to be a difficult one for the organisers if they did it at all. To much good will would have looked like a pay off, and too little would have been a slap in the face. I think they got it right to be fair to them and a nice offer. To save any face on either side I won’t be taking them up on their kind offer, I know that on the day it would have be fine.  Thank you again Clarion for the offer.

Lancaster couldn’t do anything, as I already said I didn’t want anything from them, however they could of offered to try to beat or match my current insurance terms at renewal on a fair basis by speaking to them. I respect their response that they didn’t try that approach, by the tone of my letter they were not going to win my custom anyway. Again I would have declined any of their offers or quotes for this years premium which was a lot more than I currently pay anyway.

Conclusion:

Both Lancaster Insurance and Clarion replied. Their responses were nothing of a surprise to be honest. Organisers and Sponsors are both needed to make these things works. Both Lancaster and Clarion pull these shows off well. Both of the have taken my points on board to make it better. Despite how this reads I did have a great weekend with Andrea and she has a great sense of humour and we did laugh together. There is no animosity on my side that’s for sure. It’s also great to know that I haven’t been black listed, but the jury remains out on that one for a while.

There is nothing else I can say with my journalistic report on the weekend now. The results won’t change – that was always going to be a certainty. The explanations were always going to be text book responses and these emails are just great examples of that. My experience was tainted at the end knowing that this pink Morris Minor will be paraded around as a genuine winner.

It’s up to the readers now to make their own minds up.

Email’s now exchanged and they hope the man with a Mustang drops it and moves on. I can confirm that he will indeed now move on and not to keep bringing this up. But, if I am at a car show and I get asked what went on I will explain it. My quest is complete, I have exposed what went on, no more actions will or can be done now, those ranks have closed. I only wanted a point a principle to be upheld, you cheat – you’re out!

At the end of the day I’m just one man with a Mustang, what chance did I really have? My next posts will car related again you will be please to hear.

Thanks to Chris Tilley for these great pics more of these which will be on a post soon.

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Sweet & Sour (part 2)

The Sweet (part 2)

Saturday morning arrived all to soon and this was going to be killer of a day, 9 to 6.30 I virtually never left the stand at all. Like a regimented soldier I stood on duty, One of the other exhibitors had a spare chair which they lent to me and was a real life saver. My feet were killing me and so was my throat. I went in via a different route and took more pictures of different cars.

Saturday evening I popped round to see the Mustang Owners Club Of Great Britain to say hello while they were resting after a busy day too.

The Super Sweet

Later in the day there was a little group of people following a lovely model around, and I thought to myself, “I hope that lot comes over here, otherwise I will miss them”. They did more than that. The photographer approached me and said they wanted to take some pictures of the model with my car. I wasn’t going to say no was I? It turned out the model was absolutely fantastic with a great sense of humour and she kindly allowed me to take pics as well looking at me rather than her official photographer. I took rather a lot of photo’s should we say, hoping to get that one great photo.

Thanks to this lovely lady and model who had time for me at my car, she was professional, funny and courteous. The only down side? I hade to wipe the finger prints of my car. Such was the sacrifice I made in the name of my car.

On the Sunday mornin’ we finished an hour earlier and was also the award day. A good friend of mine Chris Tilley came to replace me by the car so I could have a look around, which was very kind of thim, thank you Chris. I was off like a ferret on a scent looking for more pics. I found the Classic American stand and the car I like the most won it and well deserved, what an amazing car.

I found my friends at Meguiar’s

Then a random selection of some cars that took my eye.

Then a new Hyper car LM69 costing a huge £1m based on the Jaguar XJ13 body and engine.

And the driving position of this car was just mad, almost laying down, lower than a GT40.

Awards

The award was to be voted for by the public, there is a voting form with all the cars on from the stand. You picked your favourite car and you put your name on the back, posted and job done. These forms were on the voting booths with Lancaster staff manning them to help along with trying to also get people to win a car competition. The little white boxed stand had a letter box style opening in the middle that was regularly emptied during the show days. Here is that form;

Voting slip Front
Voting slip Back

There was a winner and two runners up which were to be announced at 2pm on the Sunday. The winner getting a year free insurance and a glass trophy, all very exciting. The pink Morris Minor (one million edition – not the one millionth car) won the show, with the MX5 in second and the BMW in third place. The fact that I didn’t place wasn’t a problem as I enjoyed my time there taking part in a great show – I MUST stress that point again and a superb experience weekend.

BUT –  and a very big but…

The SOUR

I have seriously thought very long & hard about this next section and I need your help with it.

Do I leave it here or Remove it?

There was a covering email sent out to the entrants, for joining the show with this clause;

“It’s up to you if you stay with your car the whole weekend or not. Some owners like to stay and chat to visitors, even campaigning as visitors will be invited to vote for their favourite car of the 20 displayed. However, we have had issues with cheating and complaints in the past so please familiarise yourself with the attached terms of entry. Its important we all play nice and enter into the spirit of the event. Those who don’t and breach the T&Cs will be asked to leave the show.”

Those terms and conditions are as follows:

“Terms and Conditions:
Votes will be counted and verified by Clarion Events Ltd and the organisers decision is final.

Clarion Events Ltd will not contribute to any transportation or accommodation costs for entrants.

A car can only be entered once in a three-year period

An owner can enter one car per year, but can enter a different car each year.

While the owners can engage and campaign with other entrants and visitors, any form of intimidation, cheating, derogatory remarks or bad mouthing is not tolerated and those involved will be disqualified and asked to leave.

This is not a concours competition. However, Concours winning cars are welcome to enter but should not expect to be judged in the same way.

The competition is presented in the spirit of like-minded enthusiasts coming together to celebrate their vehicles and entrants are asked to keep this in mind when joining the competition.”

Bearing in mind the above statements let me explain a little more, then you can make your own minds up. Perhaps I should just let it go, or try and expose what I saw and witnessed along with others on the stand. This is a true statement:

Friday morning the box of voting forms were brought down to the stand and placed on stand up tables. At which point things immediately started to go wrong. The owner of the Minor took a wad about an inch thick and literally run of with them to club stands, a little later on similar thing happened again. At this point it was mentioned in conversation to the organisers.

I will refer to the organisers as ‘They’ to protect their anonymity, I’m not out to embarrass them, but it was mainly one person in charge.

Then I saw the forms being pre filled in with his own car ticked, when he spoke to people he gave them his pre completed form to be posted at the same time as the person’s own vote. This was on the Friday when I sent messages to highlight the problem as They were not about to see it. Noted here on the Friday messages.

Saturday there was more incidents and there was a large wad of forms placed in the box. This was formally mentioned to the Lancaster people and They when we saw them. Not just by me complaining, but others as well who witnessed it.

Sunday morning I arrived early to catch the owner with a few voting slips taken from the stands an being filled in at a table. I took a photo as he was scrolling through his phone for contacts to fill in. Note; the sideways picture shows the back of the voting slip. The slips shouldn’t even be there.

voting form

Again They were notified by various entrants and complained bitterly. Another entrant was told around lunch time that he and another were going to be disqualified. Maybe told that to us to keep us quiet? I don’t just don’t know, we were then a lot happier that we were on a level playing field for all of us.

At 2pm a celeb who doesn’t need to be mentioned (who obviously had nothing to do with it), gave the usual speech, plugged his tv show etc and then gave the winning award to the Morris Minor. Immediately after the prize giving I showed the picture to Lancaster and told them we had complained about the cheating. The head of the Lancaster I spoke to wasn’t interested and said to me, “I know nothing about it and I just write the checks.” I showed him the photo and screen shots he walked away.

I immediately texted They and sent the picture to which the second screen shot of the messages shows you. They response was obvious this:

“We’ve discounted all the forms that we can see are clearly cheating, same handwriting etc.”

So They did know of the cheating yet allowed the entrants to continue. Thus, They condone cheating entries as They didn’t disqualify him or the other entrant that we didn’t have as much proof only witnesses and verbal communication.

We remained respectful for the presentations like good sports for the event. However after a number of complaints made after the awards I showed the Morris Minors Owner Club the evidence to which they denied it but didn’t look shocked. The Lancaster representative went over to the Morris Owners and apologise for the ‘confusion’.

After a little research on the Lancaster Website this can be found:

“Lancaster Insurance has announced that it will be widening its Morris Minor schemes, further strengthening its association with the marque. The scheme, which is now live, is available for all Morris Minor enthusiasts, of all ages, who use their Morris Minor as a second vehicle with limited mileage.
Additionally Morris Minors Owners Club members will be able to take further advantage of the scheme with up to a 25% premium discount available for members as well as the option for multi vehicle, providing one is a Morris Minor.
Andrew Evanson, Senior Operations Manager for Lancaster Insurance, comments: “Here at Lancaster we have a close affinity to Morris Minors, with our Car Club Manager even owning several over the years. We’re delighted to be able to arrange cover for all ages providing they are using it in a cherished way.”

Source:

https://www.lancasterinsurance.co.uk/news/2017/march/08/lancaster-insurance-to-arrange-cover-for-all-ages-of-morris-minor-drivers/?page=28

So perhaps this is a genuine misunderstanding for Lancaster, maybe they chose to ignore it not wanting bad publicity for a scheme they have.

I will never insure with a company that knowingly knew of cheating but didn’t take steps to follow their own terms and conditions. Remember;

“any form of intimidation, cheating, derogatory remarks or bad mouthing is not tolerated”

I hope this guy can live with himself for knowing that he won only because he cheated!

As this gets posted today, I have also sent an email to Richard Morley the Operations Director for Lancaster Insurance on 14 November 2019 at 13:47

As yet there has been no response from Lancaster Insurance. If I do get a response I will post my email and their response too.

So there you have it, the sting in the tail was deeply troubling and uncomfortable as he was the car next to mine. That’s how I KNOW what went on as he was only a few feet away from me. The atmosphere after the awards on the stand you could cut with a knife, the winning owner disappeared for a while too, perhaps he was busy doing things.

I didn’t enjoy typing that report at all, I take no pleasure from it. But, if he admits he cheated then he is better man than I thought. Not for one minute do I think that will ever be the case though.

Am I a bad person for bringing this up and maybe bringing the show into disrepute? I suspect I will now be black listed for any awards or magazine articles, Not that I care. I’m not in it for trophies (although I have three now but have never posted about them), I just enjoy my car. The Morris Minor club is one of the biggest in the country and that has a lot of weight behind it with all it’s members.

I will say that I am a man of principles – I played fair and I expect others to do the same, after all it’s in black and white that we had to play nice before the show started. I was going to frame my certificate (as we all did), I got for the show as a finalist, but now I when I see it I can’t help but think of the man that got away with cheating at the biggest car show in the country. That grates on me big time. That certificate is now in the bottom of a draw and I doubt it will come out again.

Sour grapes for not winning? Nope not at all, I don’t like cheats. I had a blast all weekend I even met an elderly chap (like me now) with the same surname as me, he also has a 1964 Mustang. What are the chances of that? 😀

Like I said a number of times, a fantastic weekend wonderful people, some great chats, I put faces to names I have often heard about. The Mustang Owners Club visited me, and for some it got better as I lost my voice!

I am also a bit upset that the lovely model is having to sit within the same post as such terrible reporting of the show’s last few hours.

Please vote and let me know what to do?

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Sweet & Sour (part 1)

Over the weekend of 8th to the 10th of November 2019 I was asked to join the other twenty finalists for the Pride Of Ownership awards in the centre of hall three. I was thrilled to be a part of the show. This show certainly hit the sweet spot for me – Part 1.

During my time there I had a great time and spoke to many fantastic people and lost my voice as a result. Some might say that is good thing though! I even let a could of people sit in my car.

The show attracted over 3000 cars, some on show & some for sale, all of which made for a spectacular show. I took around 400 photos way to many to put on my little ol’ blog so I decided to split the weekend event into two sections. As the title suggests a fantastic time was had by all and i totally enjoyed my time there and a wonderful experience I doubt could be bettered. However – it was badly tainted with a nasty twist and sting in the tail, I will explain all of that in part two in greater detail.

I will start with the events up to the opening. All entrants for the show needed to arrive on Thursday 7th from 10am onwards up until 8pm when the building was secured for the night. I set off from home just after 7am in the rain. Yep I got the car out and it rained. I didn’t stop raining ALL the way to Birmingham all be it in various intensities I should say. I eventually arrived at ten past ten a little over three hours later. There was a couple of us early birds, promptly followed by a few more a short while later. The organisers directed us to the parking positions on the stand, well a bit of carpet actually. This is view of the hall before it started to take shape, a few behind the scenes as it were. There was a long que to get us into the correct area locations.

I started cleaning from 10:15am until 7:45pm when the place was being shut down and us stragglers who were there got turfed out for the night – I was still cleaning at that point.

The car was the dirtiest it has ever been. Chrome looked like faded aluminium and the paint a shade of grey dirtier.

Some other cars arriving as I was cleaning, these guys took it super serious with ramps and all sorts with mirrors under the car, some even trailered in with plastic wraps on the wheels.

I decided to waterless wash the car twice very carefully, then i wanted to strip the old wax off and start again. That was done by 70/30% mix of isopropyl alcohol and water. With that done I could then start to add a couple of layers of clean wax to build it up again. I took my pre packed case that I thought I would need- I needed it all.

With the car pretty much where I wanted it to be I could cover it for the night and start early in the morning for the interior and finish the wheels.

Early on in the morning there was out info sheet that was to be put into the stand next to the cars, this was mine.

 Here was the stand ready for the press and some public at 9am on the Friday morning. The Ferrari wasn’t completed as it turned up, but a few guys worked wonders on it ready for the show. then carried on with the work after the show, each day the parts boxes getting less and less.

At 7.45 we were not allowed in even a few minutes early as exhibitors, mainly down to ‘jobs worth’ security guards. So a few of us sat here looking at this for quarter of an hour.

Early and late evening I could wander around and take a few pictures without people in the way. So in no particular order because I can’t remember here are a number of pics.

So real nice old timers.

 

Something different, not everyday you get run over by a tank!

Once the day got busy I hardly left the stand. The other exhibitors were great looking after each others cars (except for a couple of owners).

The car got plenty of attention throught the day and weekend and was non stop.

So what got me so fired up? Read the next post and find out, it’s not pretty reading!

Part two will be at 2pm tomorrow! 

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Wings & Wheels

Weekend just gone I attended the Stowmarket Carnival which was held over two days with a classic car section on Sunday. The general public was let in from eleven onwards, but the cars had to be in before nine thirty, although they were still being let in at ten thirty. So, I decided to take my photos sooner than later without too many people around, and before more cars arrived. A nice mix of cars and some top quality restorations on show. It was one of the first days this year I could get my show board out without the wind and rain because the sun was out all day, I even had to apply sun cream, twice! There were stalls, a dog shows, live singing, and a fun fair too.

I follow on Instagram a group of ladies called ‘_modifiedgirls’ and they also have a website called ‘https://modifiedgirls.co.uk/’ I mentioned this because I see a FTO being lovingly cleaned by a couple of ladies. Without trying to appear anything other than a genuine car fan I got talking to Tara Ashton who confirmed that she was a member of the Modified Girls scene. We had a chat about cars and I have to say that these ladies do know their stuff. I also think it’s fantastic to see members of the fairer sex enjoying the car show scene along with the guys. Here is her FTO she rocked up in to the show. I said I would give her a shout out on my blog, consider it done.

This Mk1 Ford Escort GT was a preproduction model and was used by the media to review the car. A nice example with some serious provenance.

There was mixture of a few hot rods, kit cars, more modern cars and some restorations to wonderful standards. Did you know the Fiat 500 number was the engine size in CCs? That’s 500 cc’s or half a litre, for our US friends that’s 30.5Ci  Abarth gave the engine a stage 1 modification up to 595cc (36.3Ci) which made 31bhp.

Triumph models were varied, Stag, TR6, Dolomite, Spitfire. I almost bought a Stag when I was looking for a classic car, but when I saw the Mustang, my mind was made up. But I still like the look of those stags. 🙂

Some of the other cars that took my attention, I didn’t bother with the Nissan Skylines, as for the Golf GTI’s, Jags, Vauxhall Corsa etc, I could have gone down the road to the Asda car park and seen as many as I wanted. Is that a harsh thing to say?

From the heading I mentioned wings as well as the wheels. The Saturday they had a fly by of a Spitfire (the classic WW2 plane – not the car being propelled through the air). On Sunday we were treated to a WW2 Lancaster Bomber. If I had of known I would have taken a proper camera not just a cell phone. But I tried my best to capture this incredible plane that did three low(ish) fly overs.

I turned this into a black and white picture, I think it works better than the colour pics. I took a video of he final fly over, the trouble is you just get to hear the fabulous noise.

I took this video of the last fly over, the trouble is that the video didn’t pick up the incredible sound the plane made. 🙁

To finish the post I must be going soft in the head or getting sentimental in my old age. I had a guy Andrew who loved my car and was looking all over it. He made a good presentation to me on why he should sit in my car. I let him sit in it after emptying his pockets of keys etc. so as to not to damage the upholstery, I even took a picture of him in my car, just because I said I would. Consider that done as well.

It was a hot day, but I’m not complaining about the weather for a change. 😀 I spoke to lots of people and had a great day. More of the same next time I hope.

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A Day In The Bay; The Video

Continuing on from my last post where I had visited Meguiar’s for their ‘Day In The Bay’ series. I have now been given access to all the pictures that Meguiar’s took on the day, but more importantly the video of the whole process is now also on YouTube, all eighteen minutes of it. Here are some great photo’s of the car from the day, and after avoiding being in any photos for seven years of my blogging, there is even a couple of pics of me in there, (I’m the one with the shaved head and a plain navy t-shirt). I have selected some of my favourites photos from the day, most of which are obviously the ones where I’m not in them. Rather than repeat myself with a write up again, this post is basically pictures, I hope that’s OK.

The link for the video of my car in the bay, is now on Meguiar’s YouTube channel here or watch it below.

The Washing & Drying

Into the Bay

Then it was time watch and learn how to machine polish the paint properly. There was some tiny swirls that needed a little correction first with some compound, before we got to the waxing stage.

Then I got to have a go with the machines.

Waxing

Buffing

The Final Results

With the outside completed we moved to the inside cleaning and protecting the seats.

Outside for the finished photo shoot.

Perhaps my favourite photo of the day!

I hope you like the pictures and more to the point the video, as much as I enjoyed the day. It’s funny though, I still can’t believe that I am going to show them. So, if you are going to leave comments, be gentle with this fifty something, grey haired old bloke! 😉

Remember: This is not a sponsored post by Meguiar’s nor an advert for them. I did by some products while I was there and will be reviewing them soon. Check out my ‘Car Detailing Reviews’ menu for the latest updates.

The car show season is nearly underway for this year, and I’m looking forward to a few shows this year. But, as the calendar dates pan out, there are a few shows on the same day which is rather annoying to say the least. So I will have to be selective with which ones I attend instead of going to them all.

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First Time Videos

During some routine maintenance on my PC where I back up my files, then move them to relevant folders etc. I came across an old video that I thought I had lost. So I decided that I would share that video and a couple of others with you. The day was a Saturday 14th April 2012, I had a good mechanic mate of mine; Will from Park Garage Services came round to the house and help me with the start-up. This was a long time before I started to get involved with Mustang Maniac for my parts and the proper restoration process. After a long winter of re-wiring the car to get to the point I could turn the key properly, this was a very important day in the restoration process. I had no idea that this restoration project was ever going to be a blog that it is now, so there wasn’t that many pictures from the very beginning. I already had the old wiring out, well what was left of it that is. IThe old wiring sits in a big box and I’m still not sure what to do with it. It’s old, it’s brittle, it’s burnt and melted, it’s total rubbish, but I just can’t bring myself to dump it. Any ideas what to do with an old wiring loom? Please let me know.

The new wiring had been installed and nothing was neat at this point, or even in the right places come to that. The wiring was just connected up and roughly in place. That very early stage was just to prove the process to myself that it was going to work. Later on the new wiring would be taken back out for the full restoration and paint job, then reinstalled properly and neatly, just how I wanted it to be.

Fuse box location

The engine was not cleaned or prepped in any way prior to this video. It just had the new blue spark plug leads, Pertronix Ignitor II ignition upgrade, new replica battery, one wire alternator, new spark plugs and new cables for earth and battery etc. The starter solenoid was an unknown entity so we weren’t sure if we were gonna have issues at that point.

Being as I had rewired the car myself over a few months each weekend, the wiring was also an unknown piece of work too, I just hoped I had read the book of words (instructions) correctly. In fact the good lady wife had the instructions colour copied and laminated for me. That would mean my dirty hands wouldn’t ruin the paper or tear it. I could keep the originals in a safe place just in case I did lose one section or managed to damage them.

Back to the start-up day; I put two gallons of fuel in the petrol tank and made sure there was no leaks. I had previously turned the engine over by hand with no spark plugs in place, that would make it much easier not having to deal with the compression, the engine wasn’t seized up. I had previously filled up the engine with water and some temporary light oil as the engine wasn’t going to run under stress for any length of time either. Oil lubrication is a critical factor to consider when the engine hadn’t run for twelve years or so for any cold start and engine wear. The turning over of the engine on crank would pump the oil around the engine at those low cranking revs. The car was cranked over for a bout thirty seconds and then left the car to settle for a minute or so. We then primed the carburetor up with fuel via pumping the gas (via the carb linkages) to help fire up and this was video was the result. The headers were straight out as there was no exhaust connected at all, the volume and resonance distorted the microphone on the phone.

My good lady wife was in charge of the camera at the time, this is the first time this video has been on the internet on any of my media platforms.

 

With the car restored I was arriving home from a car show and the car was filmed being driven into the garage. This is a nostalgic look at the before and after comparisons.

This time the Flowmaster 40 Series mufflers were fitted to the 3″ headers which gives that unmistakable Mustang v8 rumble.

This is also a first time showing of this video on the internet.

 

This video of the car backing out of the garage was another mate who wanted a ride out in the car when he first saw it back completed from the restoration. The final first time video on the internet video.

 

Then of course there is the mandatory drive by;

Apologies if you have seen the “Driveby” on my YouTube channel, but I think it’s worth a proper posting on the blog and not just a link.

I have started to review a few more Car Detailing products now and hopefully you will find them useful as well. I have found a couple of real nice products all of which can be found under the “Car Detailing Reviews” heading, the latest being from the Chemical Guys.

I’m looking forward to this coming car show season I must say, seeing these videos has made me realise how much I miss driving her. 🙁

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Last Car Show?

The car show season seems to be coming to an end and the Autumn is creeping up on us quickly. This latest car show at Fornham was a few miles outside the main town of Bury St Edmunds. I had arranged to meet up with the Bury Retro Car Club at the local Tesco’s to get my pass for the show. As his is always a popular show entry is only via pre booked tickets. If you turn up without a ticket you will have to wait to see if there is a space to let you in or not, as that happened to me last year. I arrived at the supermarket and found an impromptu meet in the car park with cars arriving all the time to meet up with their friends and clubs. With plenty of people wandering around looking at the cars before the main show.

Out club being no exception, we left in convoy and arrived at the ground and parked up to our allocated spaces.

After everything had settled down a bit I had a chance to wander around and take in the view of some great cars.

I got to speak with a lovely family about their car that they had inherited from their Uncle who had sadly passed away after an illness. It turns out this fastback was originally an export model and the vin number seems to confirm that. The car has a huge provenance of paperwork where receipts for spark plugs had all been filed away and documented. This car has all its original panels on it. The reason for the different trunk was that there was a dent in it which was removed but just not got round to repainting it again before he passed. We were talking for ages and the more I heard about this car the more I wanted to know. The car has all sorts of additional locks on it and alarms as the uncle was paranoid about it getting stolen. I can see his point here I must say.

I hope to catch up with them all again soon.

This may well be the last show of the year for me that I have scheduled, and the others I have made a note on depends very much on the weather.

In the future I am to limit my pictures to no more than fifty of a car show or at least split it up into parts if it’s a particularly worthy show.

My Reviews:

I have writing a few reviews for the car detailing products which I have bought with my own hard-earned money.

The first is the Chemical Gus detailer which can be found here. or cut & paste below. https://onemanandhismustang.com/chemical-guys-extreme-slick-synthetic-detailer/

The Meguair’ MT320 Dual Action polisher can be found here. or cut & paste below.  https://onemanandhismustang.com/meguiars-mt320-dual-action-polisher/

The DoDo Juice Lug Nut cleaner can be found here. or cut & paste below. https://onemanandhismustang.com/dodo-juice-nutt-plug-wheel-nut-cleaner/

The EZ Car Care Wheel Armour can be found here. or cut & paste below.  https://onemanandhismustang.com/ez-car-care-wheel-armour/

I have also added a little logo to the right hand side menu bar. This is for the McAfee Secure website notification. In other words it’s regularly scanned for viruses and phishing etc. Although this aimed at retailers, it can’t hurt to be safe with all these hackers out there! So you can browse knowing full well that this site is safe and I have paid for the service from McAfee. I am trying to see how the plugin works with my WordPress plan so I will keep you updated on that.

Finally:

My thoughts go out to you ALL in the USA and Barbados who are being battered by the recent hurricanes causing untold damage. I hope it’s all over soon and you can start to get back on with your lives again.

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Making Up For It

Another car show yesterday, and this one was at the same place of the worst car show I had ever been to. Last April I was at Stonham Barns in Suffolk and there was just a handful of cars there. So what made me go back? Well the car club I belong to is Bury Retro Car Club, were at the last show I attended with them and they told me they were going to be having a club stand at Stonham with a limited number of cars. So I agreed to be there to support the club at least. The day arrived and the weather was good so I had nothing to lose, even if it was just for a drive out in the car. I was going to be half an hour early for the gates opening, as I got closer to the event I was caught in a traffic jam of classic cars. Things were looking up and the cars were moving at a steady pace to get in. At the gate I was waved through after showing my car pass and directed around the field to the top of the field to a prime location for the club. Excellent organisation by the guys who arranged this show. I said my greetings to the club guys and had a pleasant chat before I had a wander around the show. The club had managed a gazebo with a nice selection of chairs too. The cars all looked great with classics, to sports cars and a Spider Van which was hand painted by a graffiti artist.

The field was segregated into many various clubs and sections.

The American car section with a few familiar cars.

Various clubs around the field, I spotted a light blue ’66 Mustang with a rare white vinyl roof, owned by a friend of mine David.

Perhaps my favourite of the show? For some reason I could see me in this truck. What an amazing machine, first time I had seen one up close, the classic Freightliner!

My final set of pics was around a great little story; an American guy called Larry was showing his grandson my car, and telling him about the Mustangs he used to own. My ears pricked up and I went over to talk to him. It turns out that he was stationed in RAF Lakenheath which was also where my car was imported to from Virginia. His grandson was called Harry and showed an interest in my car. I asked the little guy if he wanted to sit in it and he looked to his grandad for approval, who agreed. I took a couple of photos of the little guy ‘driving’ and looking happy in my car. I asked permission if it was OK to post the pics and gave Larry one of my blog business cards so he knew where to check out my blog and see himself on the internet! I hope Harry will get a Mustang just like his grandad one day too. 🙂

So it looks like I have been proved wrong about Stonham Barns who put on a good show after all, and I am well chuffed to see a good turn out for them, and they have made up for the poor show last time I was there. I have since found out that this event was organised by different people, so maybe that’s why this one was a success with around a thousand odd cars wedged into a large field.

Sorry for the large post, but I hope you liked it.

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Social Media Reflections

I should start with my head held in shame for not posting for two months. I apologise and I know it’s a bad way to treat your followers and readers. To my own self defence though, there hasn’t really been much to do on the Mustang over the winter that I can write and tell you all about it. I would like to say a “Thank You” for the emails about the look of the new blog, they have been very positive to date and I appreciate all of your comments. In the mean time I haven’t t been sitting around doing nothing over these last couple of months, oh no. I have started to spread my wings or is it; drift my tyre smoke, into other areas of Social Media. Now I must admit I am not a great fan of Facebook and all the waste of time posts along the lines of “share this post if you have dark hair”, “share this post if you write with your right hand”, “so and so is playing ping-pong and wants you to send them the golden ball” or “I have just got up and I am eating my breakfast”, type of stuff. It drives me mad in fact so I tend to keep away from that side of it. But, I do realise that it’s an important tool to keep in contact that just can’t be ignored. My reflections on Social Media have now prompted me to jump in rather than dip my toes as it were. As a result in that thought logic I have started my Instagram account which can be found here, or cut and paste this link into your browser: https://www.instagram.com/onemanandhismustang/?hl=en.   Search for “onemanandhismustang” if you want to find me that way on there.

If that wasn’t enough, I also started my Pinterest account which can be found here, or again cut and paste this link to your browser: https://uk.pinterest.com/onemanandhismus/  Search for user “onemanandhismus” if you want to find me that way on there too.

You will know the accounts are me because the Gravatar (Logo) badge I use is the Mustang Tribar on the blue background that matches my car.

The Instagram account should (in theory at least) allow me to post pics that I like from the car shows or other places that I attend, providing I have a signal of course. The Pinterest account on the other hand will be more of a save and share pics type of account, for all things Mustangs and the other female in my life, the legendary Marilyn Monroe. Please feel free to follow me on the accounts and I will follow you back, it’s only fair of course. Message me or do what you do on these platforms as I am a little new to it all at the moment.

In the mean time I have been making regular trips down to Mustang Maniac to see what has been going on down at the yard and enjoy the company of the guys while getting dirty and helping out where I can. Adam very kindly got me a surprise gift, he managed to track me down a rare almost mint condition 1966 Mustang Sales Brochure. I have scanned it as well as created a PDF document and shared it above in the menu “Articles/1966 Sales Brochure”, or click here for the hyper link. I have been after one of these brochures for a long time and this is the real deal and not a copy. I was so chuffed with it that I couldn’t speak for a while. Thinking about it – maybe that was the plan? Seriously though, it’s amazing and has now been stored away very carefully.

When the weather has been nice I have rolled out the Mustang out of the garage and given her a much needed clean to get rid of that pesky layer of dust on the paint job which is hiding under the dust cover. Why? Because I can and it’s a tenuous excuse to wax it again and see glorious reflections in my paint job. I also wanted to build up a nice few layers of wax as much as I can before the new car show season starts. Well that was my excuse and I’m sticking to it. A little while ago on the blog heading menus, I started a new section called “Car Detailing Reviews”. This is going to be used for the products that I use, or have used with my personal reviews on those products, which I have purchased with my own hard earned money. Some have been amazing while others not so. The recent additions that I have finally gotten around to writing up about are; Meguiar’s “Gold Class Carnauba Plus” wax, click here for that review. Here are a couple of pics to tease you a bit on that review.

roof wax on
roof wax some off

I also have been looking for a good quality product for my Magnum 500 chrome wheels to keep them in tip top shape without damaging the polished surfaces. I found a product called “Mint Rims Wheel Wax” by Auto Finesse, click here for that review, with a couple of pics to get you going.

The wheel wax was on a special offer at the time, so I purchased another of the Auto Finesse range “Mercury Metal Polish”, for that review click here to see what I think of that product. A pic or two from the review.

Finally a question.

I have had a couple of requests to be a guest writer on my blog. Nothing wrong with that of course, and it could be good. But, when I responded back via email they didn’t want to give me any details and just wanted to post on my blog. Is it not courtesy to let the owner of the blog know what you are going to post about or not? I appreciate this blog has a limited appeal as it’s (mostly) about Mustangs, the last thing I want to do is have a post on the there about the latest Nike shoes or the benefits of whistling with one finger in your ear! Any thoughts on how this “guest blogger” process works? I would be grateful to know.

Hopefully my next post won’t be so long a wait!

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